TELEVISION: Bionic Woman - Series Premiere

**WARNING - SPOILERS AHEAD**

Lights flicker on and off in an underground facility as men with guns run down a hallway strewn with corpses. Entering a room they find a shaking, bloodied woman (Battlestar Galactica’s Katee Sackhoff), who turns and tells them she’s “not in control.” She then focuses her troubled gaze on the man in front (Will Yun Lee) and begs him to tell her he loves her, which he does, before blowing her away.

Such is the intriguing opening scene for the pilot of NBC’s Bionic Woman remake (premiering Wednesday at 9/8c). Unfortunately the episode goes downhill from there, muddied with awful dialogue, bad special effects, and too many unanswered questions, and despite a few interesting interludes never recovers. It’s too bad because the cheesy but beloved ‘70s show starring Lindsay Wagner was due for an update.

Michelle Ryan as Jaime Sommers in Bionic Woman

Here’s the premise: Jaime Sommers (Brit actress Michelle Ryan) is working as a bartender in California and functioning as surrogate mom to her teenage sister following their mom’s death from cancer. She’s dating a brilliant bioethics professor/surgeon, Dr. Will Anthros (Chris Bowers of Rescue Me), and has just found out she’s carrying his child. But their plans change in one terrible night when their car is T-boned by a semi, killing the fetus and leaving Jaime near death. Out of love, Anthros takes Jaime to the secret lab he works at and rebuilds her – replacing both her legs, her right arm, right ear and right eye. Hours and $50 million later, the Bionic Woman is born.

Sommers is understandably freaked and angry when she realizes she’s now half woman, half machine. Not to mention the fact that the mysterious organization that’s reluctantly provided her these new parts wants a piece of the action. Their plan – to make her into their latest cyborg soldier after the last one they experimented on, Sarah Corvus (Sackhoff), turned against them and shot up the place, as referenced in the intro. And we quickly learn that though Sarah’s supposed to be dead, she’s survived somehow and is now functioning as a rogue agent.

With Will’s help, Jaime escapes the confines of the secret facility and attempts to resume her pre-accident life, but finds it challenging given her new powers, which include not only superhuman strength but keen hearing and eyesight as well as an optical interface that kicks in now and again, courtesy microchips implanted in her brain. She’s also under the watch of the organization, which intends to employ her whether she’s willing or not, and has a nemesis in original bionic woman Sarah.

There are some interesting supporting players that lend dramatic heft to the show, including Crossing Jordan’s Miguel Ferrer as Jonas Bledsoe, who co-founded the bio-military lab with Will’s father, Anthony Anthros (Mark Sheppard, another Battlestar Galactica alum). Molly Price of Third Watch plays Ruth Treadwell, Jonas’s second-in-command.

Battlestar Galactica executive producer David Eick is also behind Bionic Woman, which is undoubtedly why so many BSG faces (I counted no less than four) made it onto this new program, if only in cameos. The shows don’t compare though, quality-wise. Bionic Woman’s script is riddled with clichés, and I didn’t find the characters all that original or compelling.

Katee Sackhoff as original bionic woman Sarah Corvus

Ryan is very pretty in a girl-next-door, Jennifer Garner-esque way. I just didn’t find her that strong a lead, which is worrisome given that the show’s success or failure rests largely on her shoulders. Bowers is bland as well, also not a good sign as it looks like he’s supposed to be the male lead/love interest. Sackhoff, Sheppard, Ferrer and Price are more colourful, but it’s not yet known how large their roles will be.

Watching the episode I was also put off by the poor special effects - a helicopter in one shot looked suspiciously like CGI, ditto for a scene of Sommers running through the forest.

One of the functions of a pilot is to draw the audience in, but at some point there are just too many unanswered questions and it gets frustrating for the viewer. Even a second viewing had me scratching my head – all will be revealed in time I guess. The problem is, unlike better shows that fill you with anticipation, Bionic Woman didn’t leave me with that same desire to see what happens next. The good parts don’t yet add up to a satisfying whole.

Bionic Woman premieres Wed. Sept. 26, 9/8c, on NBC

Review by Cate Jones

Agree? Disagree? Email Cate at criticizecate@gmail.com

Comments

[Cathy]

If Sarah Corvus was going to be the first bionic woman, maybe they should have made her name JAMIE SOMMERS. I mean, why not?

As for the character change on the sister, I think they should have left the deaf girl in as her sister...Jamie could have worked at getting her "repaired" later on.

And back to the sister, they screwed up in the first episode by leaving the blinking lights that they use for deaf people when the telephone rings. Did they think that we would miss that screw up?

It was stupid to kill off the boyfriend right off the bat. I mean, come on! And they say that he's the only one, besides his nutcase father, that can do the bionic surgery stuff? Give me a break!

I'll continue to watch the show just because I loved the original, but they need to do some fine tweaking to this to pull it off. I hope they are able to.